I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.
Virginia WoolfRead
The interest in life does not lie in what people do, nor even in their relations to each other, but largely in the power to communicate with a third party, antagonistic, enigmatic, yet perhaps persuadable, which one may call life in general.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of life is found not just in personal interactions but in the broader dynamics of communication and understanding the world around us.
Virginia Woolf highlights the complexity of life and human experience by suggesting that our true engagement comes not only from our relationships with others but importantly through our communication with the broader, sometimes challenging world. This 'third party' represents the overarching realities and mysteries of existence that influence how we understand ourselves and our relationships, advocating for a deeper exploration of what it means to connect with life itself.
Themes
CommunicationLifeRelationshipsPhilosophyUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of communication in understanding life’s complexities.
More from Virginia Woolf
All quotes →Death is woven in with the violets,” said Louis. “Death and again death.”)
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He began to search among the infinite series of impressions which time had laid down, leaf upon leaf, fold upon fold softly, incessantly upon his brain; among scents, sounds; voices, harsh, hollow, sweet; and lights passing, and brooms tapping; and the wash and hush of the sea.
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I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.
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I do think all good and evil comes from words. I have to tune myself into a good temper with something musical, and I run to a book as a child to its mother.
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London perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play and a story and a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets... To walk alone through London is the greatest rest.
Virginia WoolfRead
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